As a big fan of post-apocalyptic movies, I am super excited about 2012. It’s like every great apocalyptic movie rolled into one, minus zombies. (It would be even cooler if there were zombies. Zombies make everything better.)
Yesterday, I was struck when the preview came on my TV and I heard Danny Glover’s voice ring out through my living room:
“Today, we are one family.”
I stopped short.
It struck me because I don’t need a global apocalypse to recognize that all the people on this planet are one family.
The thing about climate change is that I will be okay, at least at first. The weather may change, my food may get more expensive. But I am extremely privileged; I will not go hungry and I will not lose my home. In fact, most of us in developed countries will be able to adapt to the initial effects of our changing climate.
The thing about climate change is that it is people in the developing world who will be hit the hardest. Those who are already the poorest. Those who already struggle in ways that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We will turn up our air conditioning as they begin to starve. We will be inconvenienced. They will become climate refugees.
The thing about climate change is that it is our mess. The development and consumption of the “global north” are the reason that atmospheric CO2 levels are heading steadily upward from 387ppm. And they are going to spiral upward yet, as we continue to consume and as people in developing countries strive to raise their own standard of living.
Climate change is our problem. But they will be the first to pay the price.
I think it is here that “us” and “them” must end. Because if they are my family, then I can no longer rationalize myself away from them. And it becomes unacceptable to ask them to pay with their lives for my privilege.
Yesterday, as I sat on my couch and heard those five words, I felt hungry. I was hungry because I was taking my turn fasting in support of the Climate Justice Fast hunger strike. During my two-day fast, I learned a little bit about hunger.
I began to understand that we don’t grok hunger. We may talk about hunger, say we are hungry, but very few of us ever go a day without food. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for us to discuss the potential human costs of climate change. Because it’s not going to be “us.” It’s going to be “them.”
Even a two-day fast doesn’t begin to resemble the kind of hunger that millions of people face every day. Climate change is going to make that so much worse. And hunger will be just one of the human costs of this environmental disaster.
The opportunity is ours. I think that it’s time for us to be one family. And it’s time for us to seize this moment, because our family is already paying the price for our choices.
